Barry Tompkins: All the opportunities to be had in spam

Bay Area sportscaster Barry Tompkins sits in a restaurant on Monday, Aug. 22, 2011, in Fairfax, Calif. He began his career in San Francisco in 1965 and has worked for HBO and Fox Sports Net. He is known for his work as a boxing commentator, but has covered football and other sports. He lives nearby in Ross.
(IJ photo/Frankie Frost
Frankie Frost

I'VE BEEN desperately trying to become a mature adult and thinking of what I want to do when I grow up.

I've had, and continue to have, a nice career yammering about sports, covering events all around the world for virtually every TV network in America. And, fortunately, there remains a couple that think I'm still a few years away from the Hebrew Nursing Home.

It's fun. I work in the toy shop of life, and I'll continue to do so until somebody votes me off the island.

Until this week, I was concerned about what comes next in my life. I'm not a collector; I play golf only for the conversation that accompanies it, and if you ever see me sitting at a table playing canasta — please — hire a hit man for me.

And suddenly, there was my future, right on my own laptop — located in a voluminous file called "Spam."

Who knew the opportunities that presented themselves in spam? In just a single reading of accumulated spam over the past few weeks, I found that I could treat depression, get a nursing degree online, even a Ph.D. if I wanted to subscribe to Fleecer's Weekly for the next millennium.

I could even buy a handy-dandy walk-in bathtub for those pesky times when I could no longer sit on cold porcelain. Spam gave me the opportunity to help a family member with alcohol rehab or refinance my house or even take advantage of several offers, which were written in Chinese. I thought about signing up for one of those, but I hate bok choy.

And, before I read my spam, I had no idea that so many of my friends were careless enough to lose their passports, all their cash and their credit cards just as they were leaving New Guinea, and that in these moments of dire need cared enough about me to ask for the money just to get them back home. It was no problem. I'm getting the money back. I gave them my address, phone number and Social Security number just so they know how to reimburse me.

And then — boy, is this lucky — I heard from two people who have promised to take care of me and my family for the rest of our lives.

The Weir family is holding "800,000 Great British currency" for me. And, all they want is my name, address, cellphone number, age and occupation. What a deal! I don't really know how much money that is in American dollars — I've never been to "Great British."

The "800,000 Great British currency" paled in comparison to my next spam. This one came from Mrs. Natasha Zongo. Mrs. Zongo lives in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and she's looking for a foreign partner to assist her in handling a $10,000,000 fund. True enough, I'd have to split the money with her but, hey, what are partners for? And do you believe it? All they want is my name, address, phone number age and occupation — just like the Weir family.

It was my good fortune also to find an offer on spam that promised an "enlargement." That was good because I'm going to want to have some bigger pictures of my family when I move to Ouagadougou. It also said it could "grow a big package," which I'll obviously need just to load my stuff up for the move to Burkina Faso — where I'll be very rich.

And I always thought that spam was something made to seem like something else just hoping that an eager American consumer would eat it up.